07-17-2013
• http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2013/07/17/global-p
When Matt Taibbi wrote in Rolling Stone that Bank of America was “a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we’ll all be paying for until the end of time,” he wasn’t exaggerating. The bank foreclosed on tens of thousands of Americans through a “mass perjury” scheme and pushed worthless mortgages on pension funds and unions. As several big banks – including BofA, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup – agreed to pay a $25 billion settlement with the government over “abusive mortgage practices,” the Department of Justice granted the banks what amounted to legal immunity “from civil government claims over faulty foreclosures.” In January, Bank of America settled to pay $11.6 billion to the government-controlled mortgage company Fannie Mae in response to a legal battle over “bad loans.”